Monday, October 13, 2008

Double Ouch

Elizabeth May, on Jack Layton:

"Life would be simpler if I acted like Layton and didn't care if Stephen Harper formed government again. Life would be simpler if I were a complete hypocrite like Jack Layton and pretended I cared about the climate when all of his strategy makes his own personal success more important than survival of the climate and decent climate policy." (Canadian Press, October 12, 2008)

50 comments:

Partisans can say what they want, cap and trade, blah, blah, blah. What I find TELLING, the way in which the environmental community have largely criticized the NDP, a fact which is irrefutable, spin aside.

True, true, true. Just think - if he and his wife win their ridings again - and he loves affordable housing - as leader of the opposition he's get free housing at Storonoway plus their double salaries which would be over $300,000 (I'm guessing) plus free health care.

If Elizabeth May cared at all about the environment and not just about her own delusions of grandeur - she would not be leading a part that will win zero seats but whose presence on the ballot will inevitably hand the Tories at least a dozen seats that would probably otherwise have gone Liberal or NDP.

How is this helping the Liberals get the message out about the cost of Harper's environmental plan? You know, that oh so important message you were claiming just yesterday was being ignored and swore up and down it wasn't the fault of liberals spending too much time attacking the NDP.

One other point, I believe May also said people should vote NDP, where relevant, which PROVES once again, that she has the interest of the country at heart. That fact will be lost on partisan NDPers, but it's a shame Layton can't get passed his own narrow self-interest and entertain the same.

Jack Layton's made his preference for Harper over any Liberal gov't pretty clear on numerous occassions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ4AfSZNS58

A Harper minority has Layton sitting pretty if as everyone expects, the Liberals scream for Dion's head and another leadership race ensues. You'll see a repeat of the past 2 years. If Harper wins (gag) then the Liberals can foil Layton's expectations by NOT dumping Dion and repeating history.

Wake me up when Dion or any Liberal comes out and tell people to vote strategically for NDP candidates that are clearly best placed to defeat Tory incumbents - and then we can talk turkey - but you know that will never happen.

Instead we get the spectacle of Bob Rae standing in a riding in Saskatoon where in the last election the vote went CPC 45%, NDP 40%, Libs 12%(!!) - begging people to vote Liberal and suggesting that voting NDP will "split the vote". I'm sure the Tories were laughing all the way to the bank over that.

I'm sure if the NDP had agreed to not run candidates in the 275 ridings they finished third or fourth in the last election, the Liberals would be willing to accomodate. 275 ridings, which you ignore, instead scanning the country to find one instance to support a weak talking point.

On a different note. I think that trying to sell Canadians on proportional representation is a non-starter - but what about PREFERENTIAL voting like they have in Australia? Where you get to number your preferences 1, 2, 3, 4. If we had that system in Canada we would never have any problem with vote-splitting anymore because the Liberals, NDP, Greens and BQ could all beat the drums and tell their supprters that however they fill out their ballots - always put the Conservative candidate dead LAST!

I think it is ludicrous and disingenuous of the Liberal crowd to go after Jack for not saying, vote Liberal. 1 in 4 Canadians according to most polls plan to vote liberal. 1 in 5 (or higher) say they will vote NDP. To say those Canadians should fold their tent and go home is pretty self serving and not unlike every other Liberal campaign.

This time the desperate appeal from the Liberals to NDP voters is going unheard.

anon - there are plenty of liberals in Edmonton Strathcona who are voting NDP this time around - a strategic vote to unseat Jaffer. Apparently the NDP supporters in Edmonton Centre are not prepared to do the same to unseat Laurie Hawn, and the NDP candidate there is not ever really campaigning!

To those dipper defenders in here, the point is about your party's responsibility for electing Harper governments under our system, and that you must take responsibility for that along with everything else. It is this eat your cake and have it approach of sanctimony regarding Harper while attacking the main option to replace Harper in the real world (as opposed to this fantasy world where Canadians suddenly start seeing the NDP as the main opposition party to the CPC, which did not come close to happening in the last election which was your best chance nor from ALL the polls this time either) Dion's Liberals that really offends many, including those of us swing voters that pay attention to politics generally. For all the claims of being a Liberal I have always been a swing voter who decides my choice across the spectrum (or did until the past five years when two of those options where eliminated, one by treachery the other by lust for power over principles) by the choices available AND the prevailing issues of that election.

I have argued for the Libs in this election and the prior because I see them as the obvious and best means to stopping Harper, which I place paramount above all other considerations. I have watched for three years now how Layton has placed working alongside Harper to destroy the Liberals as a higher priority than stopping Harper and his radical extremist AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE ideology. I place opposing foreign based extremist ideology (which Straussian ideology clearly is, being the ideological root of Bill Krystal, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Stephen Harper and his Calgary School of political thought) as more important than normal partisan differences between Canadian rooted political parties (which is what the NDP and Libs are and share whatever else their differences), but Layton and too many Dippers angry with the Libs not being progressive enough for them instead act exactly as we have seen here. Placing their party ahead of the good of the country.

Well, the NDP can keep their ideological purity where the Libs are concerned but they also must accept their share of the responsibility for why Harper is able to win (if he does this time, which alas does seem like a viable possibility despite his horrible campaign thanks in no small part to Layton being more concerned with winning Liberal seats than stopping Harper) with it. This is the House Jack built in 2006, and will be again with a Harper victory.

As for the Libs rejecting coalition with the NDP, after the past three years of being trashed even more than the Harper CPC by Layton why would that be a shock, hmmm? Why should the Libs trust that Layton would be a reliable partner given his record of expediency over principles (as opposed to his predecessors in that job, Layton is the first NDP leader federally that I have seen be willing to sell out principles for power, before then it was a party that could be trusted to place core principles above all other considerations which was why it had respect outside it's core base) and his clear preference to beat Libs than Cons?

Give it a rest Dippers, you and your party's leadership are more interested in beating Libs for whatever reasons than you are in stopping the worst threat to Canadian progressive values we have ever seen. You are too busy being anti-Liberal because of past grudges and letting that anger cloud your vision to the threat that will if he ever gets to majority devolve powers so that future progressive parties/governments cannot create national programs. If ever there was an example in Canadian politics of penny wise dollar foolish it is the way the Layton NDP have acted regarding the Harper CPC versus first the Martin and now Dion Libs. History will record how you sold out your principles for a handful more seats and enabled Harper to govern, what a proud legacy of Canadian progressiveness that is (last sentence is dripping with sarcasm).

Signed,

A very angry and disgusted swing voter who actually pays attention to politics.

I'm not sure why you keep coming back to this, Steve. The NDP is poised to gain seats while the Liberals are poised to lose them. The NDP got its message out whereas you complained the Liberals didn't. Obviously one party ran a good campaign while the other didn't. And the reason they didn't is because they and their supporters spent way too much time attacking the fourth place opposition party.

I keep coming back to it, because your comments are ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. If you actually think the reason is because of a pre-occupation with the NDP, then you've effectively cancelled out what you said was a good campaign. You don't even make sense.

First of all, Steve, the NDP and their supporters haven't been preoccupied with the Liberals. They have campaigned against them but not even close to the extent that the Liberals have campaigned against the NDP.

Second of all, in a race you're trying to catch the guys in front of you, not behind you. So it works for the NDP to attack the Liberals far more than it works for the Liberals to attack the NDP.

You've made a blogging career attacking the Libs, so your assertion is amazing.

I also think it works both ways, since Layton realizes that by attacking the Libs, he could benefit. If that is true, then it's also true that the Libs benefit by eroding NDP support. The NDP strategy tells us where the vacilation can occur, but you don't seem to recognize the other side. In this election, we have the Cons down to core votes, so then the question becomes, for the Libs, where can we grow? The answer is obvious.

Why is that Harper prefers a divided opposition, May understands the dynamics, Dion articulates, but the NDP are alone in thinking it's not a rational argment. Ask Harper what he wants to see, it says it all as far as I'm concerned.

Apart from that, the NDP has run a very smooth, focused campaign, my own disgust at watching Harper benefit aside, you guys should be proud of your campaign.

The NDP and the LPC are competing for the same voters. Of course they are going to attack each other. The only real difference is that voting NDP will ensure Harper sticks around, and voting LPC will ensure otherwise.

Reminding NDP voters of that only makes sense. Painting Layton as someone who is willing to betray the best interests of Canada in order to get a couple more seats, but more importantly, cause a split in the vote that allows the CPC to elect more MP's, is only good politics.

I think the big mistake the Liberals have made in this campaign is spending all their time in this failed attempt to unite the so-called left (as if the Liberals are the least bit leftwing to begin with).

The Liberal Party historically won elections in Canada by being the elite pro-business party that offered sound economic management. They might have won this election if they were led by a Bay St. lawyer or economist and they just stressed the old "what's good for GM is good for Canada" routine. It worked for them in the past.

That's fine and dandy, but if you actually look at the polls, the Conservatives are below their 2006 total, a total which is pretty close to core support. That means, it amounts to banging your head against a wall, if you want to grow, you need to get it elsewhere. Half of NDP voters name the Liberals their second choice, so it's simple logic to try and poach that soft vote. The Libs benefitted from a divided right, that has evaporated, so the only chance is too solidify the center, center left. One of the great disappointments for me, I never bought Martin as a progressive, but Dion is that in spades.

I don't think the Conservatives are down to their core vote. In 2004 they got 29% of the vote. In 2006 they got 36% of the vote. What's so difficult about pushing them back down to 2004 levels? There are plenty of Tories who name the Liberals as their second choice - why not go after them.

I think that after Dion quits the Liberals should get someone like Frank McKenna or John Manley to lead them and move to the right and offer tax cuts and small "c" conservative policies and try to win back the votes of all those business Liberals that Dion has driven to the Conservatives.

Too bad David Emerson became a Tory - he would have been the perfect choice.

Come on Liberals - there is a niche for you in Canadian politics - as the party of doctors and dentists!

Of course s/he is for real, that particular dipper mentality loves living in the world of symbolism and abstraction, the real world is for fools like you and I. Ideologues are ideologues, right or left, they cannot operate in reality and have to project their fantasy world upon everyone else, exactly as this anonymous is doing. This is of course why the voting public has never trusted the NDP with government or even Official Opposition status. Yet they wonder why most Canadians never vote for them, imagine that...

Seriously dippers, the fact that you cannot recognize that the old paradigm of Liberal Tory same old story died with the PCPC and the birth of the Harper led CPC shows just how disconnected from reality you are. Even with the comparison of Harper's way of governing a minority with Martin's to contrast it with in this decade you still cannot see the vast differences between Liberal and CPC (I refuse to call them Tories, they aren't, not even close) government and which is more likely to go in the direction the NDP wants on any issue. What this shows is that Dippers like you are more concerned with holding grudges and beating the main electoral rival than they are in defending the principles and the nation against a clear and obvious threat to core Canadian values like Harper and his Straussian Calgary School approach to governing. So much for the party of principles first, that is as much a fantasy/fiction as the budget of our current Finance Minister.

I thank you for this thread. Nothing warms the cockles of my cold conservative heart more than infighting amongst the true and righteous forces of progress. I'm thankful today for that, at least.

Scotian,

Your steadfast dedication to the "Harper scary AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE STRAUSSIAN CHENEY RUMSFELD AIIEEEEE!!!" line of attack is admirable. That fact that no shred of evidence in his 3 year governing record or in his platform exists to support this thesis does not seem to phase you one iota. That's what I like about you. You sound like an old crank wailing on at the Thanksgiving dinner table about some vast, outlandish conspiracy to take over the world or something. The rest of the table just tunes you out, and rightly so.

Why thank you Olaf, I guess his deregulationist approach to food safety, his attacks on the underlying independent officers of Parliament like the elections commissioner, his attacks on the nuclear safety regulator, his government's ability to blow surpluses and spend us towards deficit again, his creation of 40yr no down loans to increase the housing bubble, all these plus many others (as these were just off the top of my head) slipped past you without notice hmmm? Not to mention the way he tried to handle the Wheat Board for that matter. All of these ARE consistent with his ideological beliefs as a Straussian, as is his noble lie (like the income trust lie in the last election and his to this date unproven tax leakage which "forced" him to break that promise) approach to elections and governing, as well as his clear belief that he and only he is qualified to have opinions on governing this country.

Sorry Olaf, but he has shown his Straussian roots repeatedly in this minority, that you failed to see/understand this is your problem, not mine. Look at his inherent contempt for the democratic processes we have in this country, things like all candidate meetings, look at the way he has used the RCMP as a POLITICAL shield as well as a safety shield at his events, not to mention his handbook on how to disrupt Parliamentary committees from doing the will of the majority whenever it wasn't his side with the majority, and so forth, all of these are hallmarks of a Straussian way of looking at government.

So excuse me if I find your calling me an "old crank wailing on" nothing more than an ad hominem personal attack because you lack the ability to do so on substantive grounds. Your apparent inability to see reality when it comes to Harper and how he governs is one of the main reasons I find you a waste of time to debate, you think you are fair but you are not, and while you are certainly fair more civil and polite than most Harper supporters you are no less partisanly blind when it gets down to it as far as I am concerned.

BTW, you did notice Harper had a weak minority limiting how far he could go in pursuing his agenda, right? Even so he showed his Straussian roots many times despite that minority, which only further underscores how far he would go with them if he were ever to get a majority.

I love Jack. I really, really do!Who else (with a straight face) can talk about MAKE THE RICH PAY as the answer to our pending economic cataclysm? Who talks Green yet acts blue? Is that not great?Oh how can you not love a Power couple who - while making 6 figures each; in the pay of the city of Toronto- would have the nerve & gall to take-up subsidized housing space? Isn't that cute!Oh do-nuth'n socialists is there nothing your can't mess up?Oh, sorry, I forgot, - you can sure mess up this country! Yup you sure can mess the country up!

Steve, this is your party, but sheesh! Scotian shure has got some yarbles!

The government is no where close to being in deficit. Also, "spending towards a deficit" from a period of +10B surpluses is, in other words, simply balancing the books and not asking Canadians to pay more in taxes than the government needs to enact its platform. And how the hell is INCREASING the taxes on Income Trusts somehow Straussian?

That said, I'm sure all your other examples of hard core AMERICAN CONSERVATISM at work have the benefit of at least being accurate. Although, I might argue that it takes more than being a certifiable control freak to be considered in anyway a staunch adherent to Leo Strauss.

Also, I'm not a "Harper supporter", as you suggest (check my endorsement). I just think that your old tirade could have been copied and pasted from anytime between 2004 and today, as if not a single thing has changed over a four year period. And I could bet you dollars to donuts the thesis won't change no matter what transpires in the next four years. It's boring and irrelevant, more than anything.

Also, I should point out if the latest Parliament is the "House that Jack built", it's also undoubtedly the "House that Stephane resolutely maintained". To have Liberals go on about how this Harpocalypse is all the NDPs fault is a little rich.

I can't do it, although they were up there - I really did think May was impressive as hell this campaign. I'm going to spoil my ballot in a dramatic democratic protest. This protest might also involve nudity and a megaphone, but that all depends just how drunk I get.